


anomaly

by foundCarcosa



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Alternate Canon, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-29
Updated: 2014-10-29
Packaged: 2018-02-23 03:27:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2532380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foundCarcosa/pseuds/foundCarcosa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adrian Shepard and Mordin Solus in five scenes -- exploration, trepidation, temptation, exultation, and... resuscitation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	anomaly

**i.**

The scars on his face were most visible, but Adrian was scarred everywhere; there were marks and memories from Earth, from that forgotten city in that nebulous war-torn North America that had once been the proud and vicious United States; there were marks and memories from basic training and its grueling toll, training that took its pound of flesh and yet demanded more, times when he’d thought he’d surely die but something in him flared blue and cold and _eternal_ and he knew he’d make it through;

There were marks and memories all over him, and he’d come to both recognise and ignore them, closing his eyes as he showered, calloused hands over scored flesh, ignoring the sensory input and output, ignoring, ignoring.

Mordin refused to ignore, cataloguing Adrian’s scars with singleminded precision, thin quick fingers tracing them as they crisscrossed over his body. Mordin coaxed the story out of each one of them, and if he couldn’t coax it from Adrian’s lips, he’d invent one, where Adrian was the victor — even now, it was difficult to see himself as such, but Mordin insisted.

"You’re lucky," Adrian murmurs, drifting his gaze down Mordin’s slight form. "You’re not scarred at all."

"Not here," Mordin agrees, indicating his flesh. "But elsewhere, muchly.

At least you wear yours. Where we all can see. So _we_ cannot forget, either.”

**ii.**

They debate about it, for some time.

"You don’t understand. For us, such… activity is fruitless. We do not mate amongst ourselves. Certainly do not indulge in seemingly arbitrary sexual behaviours -- experiments. We are... unresponsive. You know this. Told you before."

Adrian scoffs. “It's bull. You seemed plenty responsive when I—”

"Caution. What I may or may not have done whilst under _your_ ministrations, Commander—”

"Oh, _now_ you call me Commander. Is this some kind of—”

"No game, Adrian. Understand. We do not… feel the way your species does. It is unnatural. _Alien,_ if the term suits you. I am… I may be an… anomaly.”

"Anomaly _how?”_ Adrian wrinkles his brow.

"I have… been socialised. Amongst non-salarians. I may have picked up your habits, your… idiosyncracies. Your traits. Your… passions. Learnt to find pleasure in them. Cognitively. However, I remain salarian, which is… why I say this to you, now. You have... changed... me. Yes. You."

Mordin blinks, once, twice. Distress and something like petulant annoyance curves his thin mouth. Adrian laughs, shortly, not out of derision but because he’s suddenly remembered what brought on the conversation in the first place. “All that, simply because I wanted to go down on you.”

"You are... learning much about us salarians," Mordin replies, weakly.

**iii.**

Mordin had done his research. Mordin always did his research.

Now, he looks down at himself, and as ready as he might be, he feels he would be… inadequate.

"You present a… tempting image, Adrian Shepard," he says, haltingly, as Adrian arches his back and laughs, quietly.

"I _know_ I do. So what’s the issue, Mordin? Cold feet? _Now?”_

"My feet are quite regular, thank you," Mordin replies haughtily. "I simply do not… I don’t think I…"

"Well, the way I was always taught, fingers come first," says Adrian, apropos of nothing yet apropos of everything, and, purposeful now, Mordin slicks his fingers to the palm and curls them into Adrian, his head leaning close to Adrian’s back as he listens for the hitch of breath and the constriction of muscle, then pressing his hand against that place again and again, long salarian fingers coaxing guttural groans and sighing moans out of the expansive human form beneath him—

**iv.**

—and when they finally shift position it’s because Adrian wants to fetch him close, wants to hear Mordin’s lyrical hum in his ear as he arches into those deft and dexterous fingers, and it doesn’t matter who’s on top or who’s on bottom because no matter where Adrian is he is completely powerless, thin quick fingers coaxing the orgasm out of him as if they’d been trained for it, Mordin’s wrist unbreaking under the vise grip of his powerful thighs as they clench and squeeze, and— there it is, Mordin’s delighted and amused sound as the milky-white jets come _thisclose_ to shooting him in the eye.

"Humans are… so responsive," Mordin marvels, idly wiping the evidence of Adrian’s delight from his face before returning his attentions to Adrian’s quivering body. "Even now. I feel… residual quakes. Here." He touches Adrian’s abdomen, and drifts down towards his thigh. "Here.  
You truly enjoy this. More than any other species I've encountered. More than asari, even."

"Oh, is it that obvious," Adrian gasps, sarcastically, still in the process of regaining his composure. Mordin’s academic prodding isn’t helping.

"What a wonder humankind is," Mordin whispers, dazzled.

**v.**

They’d all ribbed Adrian about it — having a thing for salarians wasn’t quite as popular as having a thing for asari, but they’d expected nothing less from the free-spirited red-blooded human, regardless.

But there was fetish, and there was love, and only select few were there to witness when the difference became clear as day.

"You don’t have to," he’d pleaded desperately before Mordin sealed his fate on Tuchanka, "you don’t _have_ to, _please,_ Mordin,” and the squadmates standing with him knew what that meant, and held their breath, and bowed their head when Mordin smiled faintly and touched the glass just as the elevator bore him upward.

But when Adrian drags his bruised and beaten body back onto Normandy, the silence is not as expansive as he expects. There is… a melodic, jaunty voice, alternately singing and humming, a sound projected throughout the entire ship with EDI's silent help.

_"Mordin…?"_

Mordin Solus, very much alive, hums an amused greeting. “It seems EDI had... _better_ plans in store for me, and for you, Commander Shepard…”


End file.
